[nfbmi-talk] Secret Snyder Administration is Alive & Well

[Terry D. Eagle]

So much for Snyder Administration transparency.  Many more of these FOIA
lawsuits are necessary to bring out the sunshine and disinfect our
government from corruption!

State agency attempts to charge $1,550 for copying spreadsheet data that
already exists onto a flash drive

 

For Immediate Release

Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015

Contact:

Ted O'Neil

Media Relations Manager

989-698-1914

 

MIDLAND - The Mackinac Center for Public Policy today filed a Freedom of
Information Act

lawsuit

in Midland County Circuit Court against the Michigan Liquor Control
Commission over illegal fees the government agency attempted to charge the
Mackinac

Center for copying spreadsheet data onto a flash drive.

 

"This is information that an MLCC employee had already told us existed
electronically," said Derk Wilcox, senior attorney for the Mackinac Center
Legal

Foundation. "It would be like trying to charge for making photocopies when
the photocopies already exist."

 

On Nov. 7, 2014, Fiscal Policy Director Michael LaFaive visited the MLCC
offices to do research on the issue of "

post and hold

" rules for alcohol prices. He was told that 2.5 months' worth of data he
was seeking existed on a spreadsheet and that he could have that data if he
could

provide a USB flash drive.

 

"I asked if I could mail them a flash drive and obtain the information and
we agreed I would submit an official

FOIA request,

" LaFaive said. "I even offered to return in person with a flash drive to
obtain the information."

 

LaFaive was eventually

told

by the MLCC's FOIA coordinator that his request would require a cost
estimate and a deposit before it could be processed. LaFaive

responded

via email, asking "MLCC must do an estimate to ascertain the cost of
sticking a thumb drive in your computer?" LaFaive also

reiterated

that the only data he was seeking was that which he'd already been told
existed electronically.

 

The MLCC responded, stating LaFaive's request had been

granted,

and that the estimated cost of processing the request would be $1,550.22. A
50 percent deposit was required before the MLCC would proceed. The Mackinac

Center chose not to pay. An attached

invoice

stated the costs included $50.22 for 1.5 hours of an employee's time (an
hourly rate of $33.48) for "locating and duplicating" the requested data,
and $1,500

for copying 6,000 pages at 25 cents per page.

 

"First off, FOIA only allows a public body to charge no more than the hourly
wage of its lowest paid employee capable of the task," Wilcox said. "A
full-time

employee with an hourly wage of $33.48 would have an annual salary of
$69,638.40. It defies belief that the lowest paid employee at the Liquor
Control

Commission capable of this task makes nearly $70,000 a year."

 

Wilcox also said FOIA only allows government bodies to charge the actual
incremental cost of duplication or publication.

 

"They can't charge hypothetical or comparable costs for electronic documents
that are similar to what they could charge for physical photocopying," he
said.

"They can only charge for the actual incremental cost, which for copying a
spreadsheet onto a flash drive is negligible or zero."

 

Wilcox noted that even if the MLCC could charge a fee equivalent to a
hypothetical paper photocopy, 25 cents per page is excessive.

 

"Private businesses, that are presumably aiming to make a profit, only
charge 10 cents a page at most."

 

The Mackinac Center is asking that the court order the MLCC to pay
attorneys' fees and $500 in damages.

 

"When government entities adopt these kinds of policies that are far in
excess of the law, it becomes obvious they are designed to put up roadblocks
to

the public's access to information," Wilcox said. "They constitute a
constructive denial of a FOIA request and are illegal."